What Vehicle Health System do you Want?

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Seeing the threads regarding the falcon and hornet returning as well as the increase in players for matches has made me ponder the status of vehicle health.

Personally I like Halo 3’s system where the vehicle health was more or less player health. Yes, certain people could just start absolutely dominating, but I preferred it to Reach and 4’s system where starting weapons could bring the vehicles down (made even worse by Halo 4’s offspawn options for stickies and a plasma pistol for classes). The vehicles just felt like they couldn’t get much done (not as much so in Reach), but DMRs blowing up wraiths and scorpions? Give me a break. I shotgunned a damaged wraith in Reach the other day and that pushed it over the edge…

Overall though I think I would like a vehicle health system where vehicles have a certain amount of health, but it is split into portions, say thirds or quarters. For certain portions of the bar your vehicle would regenerate up to the top of said portion, but once all of portion is lost it is gone for good. This way, skilled operators can keep their vehicle alive and not worrying that somebody will just eventually shoot them with a DMR bullet and the vehicle goes up in flames because of the limited health, but a well placed stick or frag will still take out a heavily damaged vehicle.

Discuss and share any ideas you have.

2

Battlefield style health system for vehicles with specialized weapons place through out the map to take out vehicles but poor against infantry.

3

I do like your system actually. It is almost exactly reminiscent of Halo: Reach’s Infantry health system.

4

Vehicles can only be damaged and destroyed by specific anti-vehicle weapons.
-Rockets (No Lock On, Rockets-To-Destroy varies greatly between vehicles)
-Missile Pod (Moderate Damage, very effective Lock-On so has the most consistent damage).
-Laser (One Shot most vehicles, Two Shot for tanks).
-Stickies
-Mounted Turrets would do pretty low damage but still hurt the vehicle.
-Concussion Rifle, Railgun, and Frags would do decent damage but not Exceptional.
-Plasma Pistol EMP also does minor damage.
-Sniper does very low damage unless hitting critical areas.

Vehicles do not regenerate health.
Vehicles are redesigned to leave pilots a bit more exposed.
For vehicles where pilots can’t be exposed (like the banshee), critical areas would be added.
Basic weapons can damage the occupants but do no damage to the vehicle itself (unless hitting critical areas).

Basically Halo CE’s system, but with modern elements incorporated.

5

I want vehicles to have a high risk high reward system. So high damage output combined with high vulnerability.

Something akin to the Halo CE/PC days. Like the open-cockpit tank. Or for instance, the Halo PC banshee was a death dealing machine, but could also easily get shot down by a single pistol clip. Back then, vehicles were still very important to the game play, but on-foot vs in-vehicle combat was very balanced, and people could engage in one-on-one cross combat. There was no need for special lock-on vehicle-only weapons, and there was no need to have a entire team coordinate in order to take down a vehicle.

6

I’m in support of the Halo 2/3 system, but a dream of mine has been that vehicles would be like resources. So like in blood gulch if I destroy your vehicles my team gains superiority over yours. Maybe just increase the respawn time it takes for vehicles?

7

> I’m in support of the Halo 2/3 system, but a dream of mine has been that vehicles would be like resources. So like in blood gulch if I destroy your vehicles my team gains superiority over yours. Maybe just increase the respawn time it takes for vehicles?

That could definitely work, but at the same time it could be a detriment since some people will just get into the vehicles and get wrecked, but that it the point I suppose.

8

> Vehicles can only be damaged and destroyed by specific anti-vehicle weapons.
> -Rockets (No Lock On, Rockets-To-Destroy varies greatly between vehicles)
> -Missile Pod (Moderate Damage, very effective Lock-On so has the most consistent damage).
> -Laser (One Shot most vehicles, Two Shot for tanks).
> -Stickies
> -Mounted Turrets would do pretty low damage but still hurt the vehicle.
> -Concussion Rifle, Railgun, and Frags would do decent damage but not Exceptional.
> -Plasma Pistol EMP also does minor damage.
> -Sniper does very low damage unless hitting critical areas.
>
> Vehicles do not regenerate health.
> Vehicles are redesigned to leave pilots a bit more exposed.
> For vehicles where pilots can’t be exposed (like the banshee), critical areas would be added.
> Basic weapons can damage the occupants but do no damage to the vehicle itself (unless hitting critical areas).
>
> Basically Halo CE’s system, but with modern elements incorporated.

An interesting concept. Would you also make it so that on any map with offensive vehicles teams would have a rocket launcher for someone to get off spawn or allow the vehicles to fight it out to see who wins?

9

I’m not really sure.
It would heavily depend on map and gametype.

If we’re playing some medium size map such as Blood Gulch with a few warthogs and 4v4 to 8v8 player counts, I’d leave it up to infantry to fight off vehicles with a few “weak” anti-vehicle weapons like the Rockets on the map.

If its 8v8 and above vehicular mayhem on some big map like Avalanche with tanks, hornets and everything, I’d be a lot more generous with what each team has at their disposal.

Weapons could always be placed or removed in response to community request.
Compare BTB Valhalla with Valhalla Heavies.

Since vehicles are redesigned to be more vulnerable to the average infantry man, I’d lean towards a less is more philosophy.

10

Halo 3! Reach and Halo 4 vehicle combat was dreadful.

11

Halo Reach and Halo 4 nerfed vehicular combat. I hope Halo 5’s will be similar to Halo 2’s.

12

Something similar to the Halo 3 or the OP. The Reach and Halo 4 systems were terrible.

It felt like there was a hidden countdown until vehicles exploded that was slightly speed up by damage from heavy weaponry. Halo 3 was my favorite in the series for BTB in spite of the BR being a lottery cannon at any noticeable range. Vehicles were destructible, but still durable enough to allow skilled drivers to keep them alive. Vehicles were always useful, even when they were smoking. Obviously damaged vehicles were more vulnerable than new ones, but they were still a threat when used correctly.

‘Used’ vehicles in Reach and Halo 4 were deathtraps. At the very least something like the OP’ suggestion should be implemented instead of system in place in Reach/H4.

On a separate but related note, precision weapons need a hard nerf of their vehicle damage. It is absolutely silly to be able to 4 shot a Banshee from across the map with a sniper rifle. “Anti-Material” =/= anti-armor or anti-air.

Precision weapons should be used for disabling the drivers/pilots not killing vehicles outright. That said I would be fine with the sniper rifle piercing cockpit/windshield glass to kill the occupant as that requires much higher degree of skill than spamming hitscan weapons at a huge target from across the map.

13

The way player health system work -regeneration.

Vehicles have energy shields and the durability of vehicles (without shield)are 2x more durable than halo 4s.

Basically the way it was in halo 4 but with 50%-100% more health.

14

Halo 3’s, hands down the best vehicle health system.

15

Well I’m happy to see that most people so far seem to want Halo 2 or 3s system or something similar to my variation. As long as the vehicles are more effective than they were in Halo 4 and Reach I’ll be happy.

16

vehicles bar the warthog were the most effective they’ve ever been in reach.

i want a system where vehicles can create a large amount of potential damage but are not very durable.

i want all vehicles to be mobile but also have fluid handling.

the reach system has been the closest but there was 3 problems.

  1. vehicle invincibility
  2. poor player spawns
  3. sandbox that wasn’t good at handling the banshee, wraith and scorpion.

before i mention the problems here is how the reach system worked in a nutshell

the vehicle had damage levels.

for instance the banshee had 4 levels and taken ~40 shots (DMR) to die

HOWEVER

it could be much less…or much more

this is because the damage levels relied on the players health bar

i think it was crossing the threshold at about 66-75% player health would take it down a damage level.

the problem is that if that threshold was not crossed the vehicle was invincible.

the thing that i would change is slightly increase the amount of shots to kill the vehicle and make it that EITHER crossing the health threshold dropped it a level OTHERWISE it will sustain all damage it receives, removing the invincibility.

i’d also fix player spawn zones as they were trash in reach, and add more vehicles and weapons that can deal with vehicles (good warthog, missile pod, chopper and hornet).

17

I like the 3 recharging health bars idea. I would make UNSC vehicles highly resistant to solid projectile fire like all UNSC rifles and pistols, but vulnerable to Plasma fire from any Covenant weapon. Covenant vehicles would be resistant to plasma but weak to solid projectiles. All vehicles are weak to explosives of course. There would have to be a nearly equal divide of faction weapons on the map to make this fair. I think it makes the game more dynamic and strategic.

18

Call me old fashioned but I liked it when vehicles were indestructible. It made for more critical fights where careless operators not only risked death, but would respawn to find their babies in the hands of the enemies.

It feels like vehicles have more and more become throw-aways, and have been marginalized by far too many power weapons. If vehicles did have health I would prefer them to be of the sturdier stock found in Halo 2 and 3. While I like a variety of weapons, I’d also like to see fewer types of power weapons to appear on each map.

19

This thread makes me think about one of our all-time favorites: The Scarab.

Your entire team could shoot that thing all day long with small arms (pistol, AR, DMR, BR) with little or no result. At best, rockets and missiles would disable it. The core was the vulnerable point and you could hit it with a rocket or missile from the outside, but the sure-fire method was to board it. Then you could take it out with a melee if that’s all you had.

Military vehicles, in addition to providing mobility, usually also provide protection. Thusly, a person in a vehicle should outlast a person on foot, unless that vehicle still leaves you totally exposed like a Mongoose or a Ghost. The larger the vehicle, the more protection it should provide. Small arms should be practically useless, but not completely.

(Real) Grenades are effective anti-tank weapons, but they will not destroy a tank. In the Army I was taught to aim grenades to land just in front of a moving tank so that it would roll over it and the detonation would occur at the least protected underside. Failing that you wanted to destroy the treads to at least stop the thing.

Rockets and missiles are heavy armor destroyers and, at the most, two should permanently disable anything short of a Scarab.

Chain guns, Gauss cannons and similar weapons should also permanently disable vehicles and be slightly less effective than a rocket or missile.

Since armor-piercing rounds are available for snipers, they should be able to take out a pilot/driver of a heavy vehicle, but unless they hit a critical component of the vehicle such as a power core or ammo bay no amount of sniper rounds should disable a heavy vehicle.

I guess all being said I don’t like the idea that you can stop a tank with a pistol. The larger the vehicle, the harder it should be to damage/stop. I mean, that’s kinda the point, from a military perspective. If their point in the game is to be just something else to shoot then it’s no wonder they don’t get used in H4.

20

> <mark>I guess all being said I don’t like the idea that you can stop a tank with a pistol.</mark> The larger the vehicle, the harder it should be to damage/stop. I mean, that’s kinda the point, from a military perspective. If their point in the game is to be just something else to shoot then it’s no wonder they don’t get used in H4.

You can stop it with your fist, so… :slight_smile: